In recent years, while the strengthening of steels has been advancing, the workability thereof has been deteriorating, and, as a consequence, demands for a steel which is excellent in forgeability and machinability have been growing. Common measures to improve efficiency in hot forging have hitherto been to decrease inclusions, to add elements which enhance high temperature ductility, and to decrease the amounts of elements which lower high temperature ductility. In the meantime, it has been known that the addition of elements to improve machinability such as S and Pb is effective for improving machinability. However, as the elements effective for improving machinability deteriorate high temperature ductility, it is difficult to obtain good hot forgeability and good machinability at the same time. For instance, Pb and Bi are considered to improve machinability while having a comparatively small adverse influence on forgeability, but it is known that they deteriorate high temperature ductility. S improves machinability by forming inclusions such as MnS grains which soften under machining conditions but the gains of MnS are large compared with the grains of Pb and so on and, therefore, they are likely to be the origin of stress concentration. When MnS grains are stretched by forging or rolling, in particular, they cause anisotropy in mechanical properties and the steel strength is significantly lowered in a specific direction. For this reason, it is necessary to pay attention to the anisotropy at a design stage. Therefore, in this case, a technology for minimizing the anisotropy caused by the elements to render free-cutting properties is required. Further, P is known to improve machinability, but it cannot be added in a large amount because it is likely to cause cracks during casting and, for this reason, there is a limit to the machinability improvement effect of P. Some researchers maintain that an addition of Te is effective for solving the problem of anisotropy (for instance, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. S55-41943), but Te is likely to cause cracks during casting, rolling and forging.
Besides the above, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. S49-66522 discloses a technology of attempting to improve machinability of a steel in a wide range of cutting speeds, from low-speed cutting to high-speed cutting, through an addition of a deoxidizing agent containing Zr and Ca. In this technology, however, the problem of the fracture caused by MnS grains stretched during rolling or forging remains unsolved.
In this situation, further technical innovation is required for realizing both high hot ductility and good machinability at the same time.